Do not move an ancient boundary stone
which was put in place by your ancestors
-Proverbs 22:28

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Separated from a Believer

A bit of a twist from my latest post
on that other blog.An unplanned twist.

Posted here because this is more
of an in-house issue (though it may appear to be another out-house issue).

Anyway, the other day I heard
from a buddy at The Club (a buddy who is admittedly “rough around the edges”) -
that he was in the process of “splitting things up”. Seems he’s taking care of a bunch of
financials with his wife, a Separation Agreement to be specific.Seems they’ve been separated for about a
dozen years.

Living in the same house, but no
eating or drinking together.And of
course no sleeping together.

Seems Buddy is being suitably
shunned by his wife for being an “apostate from the Church of God of theRestoration”.Such is their policy of
church discipline. Such is their hostile interpretation of Romans 16:17.Such
is their “scourging”.

As I recall, this local church
got into huge hot water with Children’s Aid around a dozen years ago. Got into trouble for scourging their children.So they are suitably a little more discreet about
their scourging now.

This sounds a lot like the “scourging”
of the Qur’an doesn’t it?-

As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish
them to beds apart, and scourge them - 4:34 Pickthall Translation.

But
Mohammed wasn’t quite that hostile to his rebellious wives.Mohammed threatened to invoke his newly
granted privilege to divorce them, but merely separated from all his wives for
a month. He did not scourge them (though the father of one of the wives humored
Mohammed by offering to “cut off her head”).

Yet
this Muslim admonishment is considerably more hostile than Christians are
permitted to employ.And as we have
shown in previous posts- such admonishment is certainly a sin.This ‘tough love’ is simply not permitted.

Regardless,
this ‘shunned buddy’ doesn’t want to divorce his wife.He doesn’t believe in Divorce (has a
Restoration hangover, I guess).And
Buddy’s wife doesn’t believe in Divorce either.Divorce and Remarriage are not permitted in the Church of God of the
Restoration.Only Restoration is permitted,
it seems.But that isn’t likely to
happen, since neither meds (“she is stressed out”) nor out-of-house counselling
is permitted by her cult.

So Buddy
will continue to live with her.Will
continue to be scourged by her.Will
continue to be scourged by her “cult” (he defines cult as a ‘misappropriation
of authority’).But Buddy will merely distance
his finances from her (contrary to Exodus 21:10).

Sounds quite
noble of Buddy, huh?Yet Christians are
not compelled to treat unfaithfulness quite like that.Exodus 21:11 compels you to make a clean
break from unfaithfulness (and adulterers actually made a clean break with
their head back then).

Anyway,
we have discussed how unbiblical this is in numerous posts, so we will not
repeat it here.Besides, Buddy will not
take out-of-house counselling either. Buddy
doesn’t like my interpretations.

He
tells me, “We are only separating”.

I tell him,
“I don’t see a biblical mandate for Separation”.

He
tells me, “Well, I don’t believe in Divorce”.

I tell
him “You are already divorced.You are
no longer ONE FLESH”.

He
tells me, “That is just your interpretation of Marriage”.

I tell
him “That is the interpretation of Genesis 2 and Matthew 19”.

Then
buddy tells me that his ‘interpretation has changed so much in the past 30
years since he became a Christian and that mine will certainly change in 30
years’.That I will have ‘a more generous
orthodoxy/ more noble uncertainty’ when I mature (we are the same age).

So we
end up arguing over Table Tennis Rules.We dig into the Official Rules posted behind us and finally agree on
them.So I ask him if he ‘will agree
with that definition in 30 years…

Anyway,
let’s look at how I think this will play out for Buddy’s wife.After all, ‘what’s good for the goose is certainly
good for a gander’, right?

Let’s
speculate on how her sanctification is going to play out on judgement day.Her cult is quite adamant that Buddy’s wife
is “perfectly sanctified”, however…

Lately,
I have been looking at numerous charts with my Sunday School students, charts of Sanctification.And I don’t think any
current charts are all that accurate.And I’ve stressed to my students, that some Christians actually
crash in their sanctification (never to recover, as those charts never seem to
indicate).

And I
think Buddy’s wife is a crash.She has
trashed the very model of our relationship to God.She has trashed the second greatest
relationship that she could possibly have (yes, even greater than a Father and
Son).

Trashed
it by her idolatry of “The Only One True Church”. An idolatry she has held for a long, long
time. Her sin is being multiplied and her sanctification is clearly diminishing.

And I
expect her recently deceased cult leader to receive harsh judgement for this “scourging”
doctrine as well (cf. James 3:1).He may
be saved but…

The grace of our Lord Jesus has not been
modeled well at all by them.Their Union
with Christ is pathetic, and I expect their rewards to reflect that.How’s that for generous, Buddy?

But in
closing, let’s just take a quick look at what this “scourging” is supposed to
look like from Buddy’s wife (taken from this cults ‘source for scourging’ a few
chapters earlier):

Taking
some liberty with the text-

“Vengeance
is Mine.I will repay” says the
Lord.“But if your husband is ornery,
f--- him.So far as it is possible, be
at peace with your apostate husband” (Romans 12:18-20).